Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Peanut Butter Day!

Sick with love and alcoholism, Randy tries to eat peanut butter because he can't swallow solids. His stomach can keep the food down, but the lump in his throat won't let anything get there without a great effort.

Randy gets a spoonful of peanut butter past his tonsils and feels it envelope the lump. It clumps near his windpipe. He's afraid it might cup over the top of the pipe and stop his breathing while he's sleeping tonight.

Randy has to drink some more bourbon. Bourbon is the only thing that can shrink the lump right now. Last week it was rum, but that stopped working so he had to switch to bourbon.

The glassful of bourbon rains on the clump of peanut butter in his throat. It puddles in the crevaces. Randy has to wait for the bourbon to seep deep into the mass of peanut butter and eventually dribble onto the lump. It takes a moment.

"I think I can feel the lump getting smaller," Randy says out loud, hoping to make it come true. "But just to be sure..."

Randy drinks another glass of bourbon. He can now feel the lump yielding passage to the peanut butter. He is able to close his mouth now without gagging.

"The peanut butter is definitely heading for my belly now," he thinks. "Once it is there, I will have eaten. And I will get better."

Randy knows that it is the bourbon that shrinks the lump. And whenever he stops drinking the bourbon, the lump in his throat returns.

"But one day it won't," he says to his glass of bourbon. He talks to his bourbon sometimes. His bourbon is his friend. "One day, I'll wake up and the lump won't be there anymore. And I'll climb off of the floor and into my bed and sleep with a slight smile on my lips." But there's no reason for Randy to stop drinking bourbon if all he can do is wait. Unless the bourbon stops working. But he's thought ahead. There's gin in the cabinet.

Randy pours another glass of bourbon. "This time, I'll think of Anna's bras."

With a vision of two Annas wearing two different bras in his head, his two favorites, Randy swallows the glassful of bourbon and goes into the living room to sit on the floor with his back up against the couch.